Slow travel is more rejuvenating than any high-speed chase of tourist attractions

Slow travel is a way of structuring your travels so that you are realising your quests and seeking meaning rather than ticking things off your itinerary. There’s also a near spiritual satisfaction when you know that you have earned your way in blood, sweat, and literal tears to make it to a destination.

Slow travel is actually a splendid offshoot of the slow food movement. The slow food movement arose in Italy during the 1980s as fast-food chains like McDonalds attempted to infiltrate and outcompete local businesses.

Italy said, no – but in Italian (which is really just an overly-emphatic ‘no’ with wild hand gestures), and the slow food movement was born. It emphasises a connection to place and valuing local businesses and their high-quality products over cheap, mass-produced food.

Essentially, it’s a movement of quality over quantity.

You prioritise connection with local people over another selfie with the Eiffel Tower. It’s about sitting in a hole in the wall store on tiny plastic chairs and trying the best soup you’ve ever had in your life. As you look around, the smallest details create an impression, and perhaps leave a lasting imprint, on your mind. Well, this is what travelling is all about.

A slow travel itinerary would be to impulsively buy a bus ticket to a town vaguely heard of. It gives you time to scour local newspapers for some part-time work. There’s time to learn the recipes of my housemates; eat at local restaurants. It’s about getting under the skin and becoming part of the fabric of the town.

By slowing down, you get back to the roots of what it means to take time out from your life. It’s not to see as much as you possibly can – it’s about restoring yourself and your energy levels.

Slow travel is also far more sustainable, far less expensive, and far more enjoyable than a high-speed tourist chase of attractions.

Slow travel is an approach that emphasizes connection to local people, cultures, food, and music. It’s about taking the time to immerse oneself in the environment and experience a destination more authentically.

Instead of being ushered onto the boat after two hours of splashing in the water, every morning at 7 am, you could swim with the fish before making your morning coffee. You’d get to freedive, snorkel, scuba dive, sail, and generally play water baby goodness as part of your daily routine.

Travel is supposed to be a step away from the grind culture. You should travel to offbeat locations to challenge yourself, sure. You should learn new skills, new languages, new ways of life.

Sailing takes slow travel and turns it into poetry. You rely on the wind and the currents to take you from A to B. Having the weather as your decision-maker forces you to think about your travel in terms of seasons.

Working so hard to reach a destination makes it that much sweeter – and the destinations being already pretty sweet. But after sailing across the Pacific for 30-odd days, the first sight of land touches the sublime. Earning your way to a destination in blood, sweat, and night watches is one way to ensure you have a deep and unending appreciation for a place!

The old salts live by the phrase, the best plans are written in the sand at high tide. You make a plan to spend a season sailing the Caribbean. But then, you realise that there is an excellent weather window to cross the Atlantic, and you heard that the wine over there is really quite nice.

Sailing is also environmentally sustainable. The adventures you and your floating tin have really drive home this sense of responsibility for this pale, blue dot we call home. And that, more than anything, is the point of travelling slowly.

Hitchhiking is a special form of slow travel because it puts you right in the thick of it. This is what travel is about. You slowly, slowly make it somewhere. The ‘where to’ becomes less important and ‘when’ becomes almost irrelevant. The locals become your neighbours and the country becomes your home.

Slow travel is about quality over quantity, experiences over sights, and connections over checklists. It’s a well thought over approach to travel that enriches your journey and deepens your understanding of the world. As you embrace the principles of slow travel, you’ll discover that the journey itself is as rewarding as the destination.